Wednesday, December 24, 2008

I've been suffering from a bit of writer's block lately. I appreciate those of you who email me when this happens just to check in. That's so sweet. No, it's more than sweet, it's downright loving. And I love you back.

Remember that post I wrote a few weeks back about a new relationship? Yeah. That one. Let's just pretend I didn't write that one. But don't worry, it's okay. Just trust me on that. If I've learned one thing this year (and hopefully I've learned more than one) it's that dating and blogging don't mix all that well. I guess it's one thing to put the trials and tribulations of being married to a guy who's same sex attracted and eventually leaves you to come out as gay online for the world to see. It's quite another to try and "bare your soul" when you're navigating the world of dating. Mostly, because it's difficult to trust your soul at any given moment in light of the fact that you are just getting to know people. Not to mention the fact that there are OTHER individuals involved who also have souls that are in the same sort of flux. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Dating sucks. I do know this; being alone is better than being in a bad marriage. And if this is as good as it gets, so be it.

In other news, I am going to see all four of the boys during this holiday break. I will hopefully have pictures to post.

Until then, Merry Christmas to all! Thanks for caring and writing and COMMENTING (heehee).

Sunday, December 14, 2008

There's been a recent surge of former classmates and childhood friends of mine joining Facebook and it has been outrageously fun to catch up with these folks. Part of the joy in it, for me, comes from the fact that one of the things I miss the most about having moved away from Granbury is the loss of shared history.

Shared history is incredible because even if you don't remember each event exactly, or at all, if you had a part in any piece of that time and place, you feel connected to it somehow. Connectedness. There's nothing like it.

I shared one such piece of connected history with an elementary classmate of mine named John. John was a year older than me but we were in what our district at that time called a "split class". I think they sold this arrangement to the parents by telling them that some of us were such advanced learners, a.k.a. smart (I don't recall the term "gifted" ever being used back then and I sincerely wish we could scrap its use now.) that we could function in a class where we weren't constantly supervised by the teacher, thus enabling her to teach two entirely different curriculum in one year and in one setting. Looking back, I see this all now as code for, "your kid will sit down, shut up, read the chapter and answer the questions just because someone tells them to do it." While there IS something to be said for that sort of acquiescence in students, I'm pretty sure it's not all that educationally sound.

On to my story.

One day after school, I was walking up the wide sidewalk that connected the long rectangular-shaped buildings which housed the classrooms. Unlike the schools built today, at our school each classroom opened to the outside world. It all seems quite odd to me now. There was no one else around, and I didn't hear John as he came quickly skipping up from behind, kissed me on the cheek, then continued running on. And seriously, I think John's memory of this occurrence probably lasted right up until he reached the other end of the sidewalk or possibly as long as it took him to get home and start rummaging around for an after-school snack.

I, on the other hand, have this occurrence seared in my brain as if laser beams cut it out of steel. You see, I had been kissed by a BOY....a REAL, ALIVE boy. This certainly meant that within the next few months I'd be popping out a little Pammy or God-forbid another kid like John who would run around impregnating innocent 5th grade girls as they made their way home from school.

The first thing I did when I got home was to begin checking my tummy for swelling. I WISH I were kidding you or exaggerating here. I'm not. It was horrific. The fact that I was entirely too nauseous to eat anything for the next three days only affirmed what I knew to be true because pregnant people always felt sick. I'd watched enough "I Love Lucy" to know that kissing is the cause of pregnancy because heck, those two didn't even sleep in the same bed and little Ricky was extremely real and highly annoying with his whiny little voice and incessant banging on that drum of his.

I considered telling my older sister who was 15, but I valued her opinion of me so highly and she'd managed to make it all the way to 15 without getting pregnant. I was so full of shame at having allowed this horrible thing to happen, that I determined that the best course would be to just let them all figure it out on their own. I mean, how long can a 10-year-old realistically hide the fact that a baby is growing in her belly?

As fate would have it, or the fact that being transparent permeates my personality the way Cher's closet brims with hideous designer evening wear, I burst into tears at the dinner table about four days after the kissing incident. Sobbing over my fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans, I blurted out the hideous truth. "John XXXX kissed me!" Feeling certain that I was soon to be whisked away to an aunt's house in faraway Sulphur for the remainder of my gestational period I waited for the reaction of my family.

It was laughter. They laughed.

I was at once relieved and confused. Relieved, obviously, at the fact that I wasn't moving to Sulphur (oh no, that will come much later in life dear under a much different set of tragic conditions). But, confused nonetheless. I mean, how in the heck DID Lucy get pregnant????

Saturday, December 06, 2008

This is Kurt, OK? I am the guest blogger. I don't want anybody thinking Pam has moved to El Cerrito and married a guy named Tony.

Now here's something I need to get off my chest about this Proposition 8 (the anti-gay marriage ammendment) controversy here in California. Now I am definitely in the "No on 8" camp, having been married (to the afore-mentioned Tony) at San Francisco City Hall on Valentine's Day, 2004.

But if you ask me the "No on 8" campaign and the subsequent campaign to overturn Prop 8 (either through the courts or a future ballot initiative) have gone off in a fundamentally wrong direction. And that is the direction of characterizing opponents to gay marriage as people who are full of hatred towards gay people.

Now I'm sure there are plenty of people who voted yes on Prop 8 who genuinely hate gay people and would like to see us all locked up in concentration camps (or worse), but I truly believe that hatred is not the what motivates the bulk of the anti-gay-marriage electorate, particularly when you're talking about your standard Evangelical/Catholic/Mormon "family values" voter.

What motivates that voter? I believe it's fear.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of change. Fear of strange-people-who-aren't-like-me. Fear of choices that my children and grandchildren will have that I don't want them to have. And above all fear of the mysterious powers of darkness, fear of Satan.

There is a tendency in the Judeo-Christian tradition to regard all of human history as an epic struggle between God's chosen people (the Jews or the Christians or the Americans) and Satan. And whenever the chosen people disobey God (thereby temporarily giving Satan the upper hand), all kinds of bad things happen. You get banished from the Garden of Eden. God sends you a flood. God incinerates your city. The Babylonians enslave your entire nation. Terrorists attack your country.

Now I think what this means is the more seriously (or literally) you take that tradition of the great war with Satan, the more likely you are to put the gay marriage battle in the context of that struggle. And if you think of our nation as a Christian civilization, and therefore a nation with a special divinely ordained destiny, well, then you're that much more likely to view American current events as part of that epic struggle.

Now. Let's say that is your worldview. Epic struggle. Chosen people. God's going to make bad things happen if Satan wins. Put that worldview in your head for a minute. Is hatred part of that worldview? What happens if some gay person comes up to you and says "Hey! Stop hating me! That's not right!"

Are those words going to mean anything to you? Do you regard yourself as somebody who's full of hatred towards people who don't keep God's commandments?

But what if that same person says "What are you afraid of? Where is your fear coming from? Why does my life frighten you?" That, I think, is where the conversation needs to start.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

The most astute (or just those who feel extra pitiful for me) of readers may recall the occasion last summer when I thought I'd met someone with whom I was going to be "in a relationship". If you don't frequent MySpace or Facebook that term may seem odd, but it's not, it's just how those of us who are *ahem* internet savvy (code words for addicted to online networking) roll.

So, in order to avoid the complete and total disintegration of a relationship before one actually even exists, I've actually waited one ENTIRE week before announcing to my blogworld that I am indeed "IN" a relationship.